Kindred
by Hana Rui
Summary: OnHold Kaede Rukawa has kept a grudge on his little sister for years. What happens when she suddenly moves in to live with him?
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer:** I own nobody, k? (does anybody realize how much it hurts me to say that? sniff)

**Warning:** May have yaoi content… Violence… Disturbing themes…

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**Title: **Kindred 

**Author: **Hana Rui

**Genre: **Drama / Angst

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**PROLOGUE**

The cruel crack of a whip echoed through the whole household in the middle of the night. The trembling raven-haired girl snuggled in a dark corner of that room watched in silent terror as blood began to ooze out from her brother's lips.

The whip found its way to the bruised, pale skin once again.

The abused young boy was clearly fighting off the urge to cry out in agony. He bit on his tongue harder and couldn't help but shiver at the coppery taste in his throat. He felt the warm liquid snake down from one corner of his lips to his chin, down to his neck. It hurt, but he wasn't going to manifest it in any way. He would never let this old man see him fall into a chasm of defeat. Of the abysmal fright which was struggling to engulf his little heart. Even at six years, he was as brave as any guy thrice his age could ever be.

There was no room for surrender or fear in his soul. In his heart. He had much too much pride for such things. And besides, this wasn't the worst that could happen to him. He had experienced a crueler fate in the hands of the same man, and yet he was able to survive through.

What could possibly make him give up now?

Another slash sent an almost unbearable pain pulsating through his veins. He felt the skin on his shoulder break and had to close his eyes tight to spare them that gory sight. It was taking up much of his strength to fight off the numbing pain from completely overwhelming him.

Then again, wouldn't it be better if he just died right then and there? That would at last give him peace… and calm… No pain… No--

"Yamete," he heard the faintest plea coming from the other entity in that room. The very same being that was the cause of this strife. He gritted his teeth hard and clutched his hands into trembling fists as a scorching rage went surging through his body. He couldn't take it any longer. Why did she have to come in the first place and steal everything he had always wanted to have? Why was this old man treating him like a dog while he gave all his love to that girl?

All the love that a child could ever ask for from his father…

The fuming little lad grunted in protest at his own bitter thought. Who needed love anyway? From the moment he opened his eyes to the world, he had never been given the kind of love that was due an innocent little bundle of joy. And he had been living for years without actually feeling that kind of affection. So who's saying he needed love to survive? He shouldn't be thinking of such craps at this moment.

But how could he not when the cardinal source of all his agony was staring right at him with those puffy green eyes of hers as he got beaten up to a pulp. How could his ego survive such a humiliation? And she was even crying, for god's sake as though it mattered a lot to her!

As though HE mattered to her… A lot…

_GO AWAY!_ His mind was crying out, his eyes piercing that worm with the sharpness of his anger manifested in his blazing blue eyes. And as he felt another rattling blow hit his body, he closed his eyes once again and let himself fall into the gaping, endless pit of absolute anger. The anger that fueled his vengeful spirit to an insatiable edge and filled his heart with sheer, irreversible hatred. The hatred that brought him to a determined, lifetime vow…

He swore to make her pay for all the sht she had brought to his life. He was gonna make her regret her mere existence.

He swore on that by his life…

He got so full of and blinded by his wrath that he was rather startled when a pair of damp, sweaty arms suddenly wrapped tightly around his neck. He opened his eyes just in time to see the whip tear the thin cloth covering the frail back of that cursed kid.

The cursed kid who had draped herself on him to take the rest of that demented old man's frenzic attacks.

The little girl was utterly shocked at how painful that single blow had felt. She could not begin to imagine how much agony her brother had been suffering--tonight and on the past nights that their father had come home drunk and delirious. Blinded by the bitterness and wrath he had been carrying in his heart, in his spirit for years.

The wrath he had for her older brother.

"Yamete!" she pleaded again, this time louder, as she buried her tear-streaked face on his brother's neck. "Onegai!" She heard him wheeze as another welt was delivered on her already bleeding back. She felt stalwart hands pushing him roughly away, but she only held on to his neck all the more tightly.

"KUSO!" came an angry snarl echoing from the young guy's throat as he kept on pushing on that worm. That... that bitch! He would pull through this alone without any kind of help from anybody. Much less from a frail little girl.

Much less from _this_ certain little girl.

Both kids were utterly shocked when the old man himself pried the sobbing girl off a little too harshly by her shirt that she nearly choked and broke a bone in her arms. The grunting drunkard then dragged her along the floor, hauled her out to the hallway and banged the door close with a force that nearly shook it off the hinges.

Then he faced the frowning lad on the floor, a wide baneful smile stretching his lips.

And nothing on the face of this cruel world could've prepared the proud, young lad to what happened next. It was beyond all reasons. Beyond all hell…

It was completely beyond his innocent, _virginal_ understanding.

Just a little while later, all the cries that the young guy had been holding back tore from his lips and filled the house with the resounding din of the agony he was currently suffering.

The agony he knew he could never live through...

The stricken little girl wailed just as loudly outside as she incessantly banged her feeble, pygmy hands on the door.

"ONII-SAN!"

**tbc**

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Ja! That's all for now! Thanks to my cousin **maiden** for encouraging me to post this fic. 


	2. Chapter One: Hourglass

Yes, I am still alive! I got a couple of weeks off school and I plan to use them to work on my unfinished fics. Sorry for such a long delay! I hope you people would still care enough to spare this humble fic of mine some of your time and tell me what you think about it [onegai?] To the people who reviewed the previous chapter, thank you very much!

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CHAPTER ONE: HOURGLASS 

He looked her up from head to toe, not half believing the actuality of what he was seeing. She was wearing a white peasant blouse that did little in hiding how much she had grown on that _certain part_. Yes, he actually had trouble prying his eyes from off _that place_. He just knew he had to stop staring when from the corner of one eye, he noticed her middle-aged aunt eyeing him with a dubious frown.

He did succeed in darting his gaze away from that certain area, only to end up having it stick in another certain region manifesting her femininity. He couldn't help but notice how her tight jeans failed to shroud how big she had grown _down there_ as well.

To what thing were ladies like this compared to again? Ah, yes. An hourglass. She had a perfect hourglass figure. Who would've expected her to be this... appealing in her teens?

"So?" the forty-plus-old woman prodded, a little impatiently. "Are you taking her in or what?"

Kaede Rukawa, foxy eyes locking with those of the girl's jade-colored ones, shrugged and cursed inwardly. As if he had any other choice. "I'll take her," he all but grumbled as he held his hand out to get the girl's bulky baggage from the slightly reluctant old hag who looked as though she was seriously reconsidering her initial notion of leaving the kid to his custody. _DAMN!_ Rukawa wanted to cry out. It was three o' clock in the afternoon of a fine weekend and he sure had other more important things to do than stand here and wait for this shit to make up her mind. 

Not wanting to waste any more of his precious time, he made a rather rough grab for the pink backpack and had to actually fight off the urge to kick the scowling witch out so he could finally get on with his life. 

Then again, he would have to take care of that _little pest_ first.

His eyes darted to **_that_** kid again. This time without any circumscription as to where and where not he should be sticking his gaze on. He could stare at her all he liked for all that repulsive oldster cared, right? After all, starting from that very moment -- and by his own laws of conditional magnanimity -- he owned her. And that, in fact, was the best gain he got from this deal. The best he had ever been blessed with in his entire existence on earth. This hoary twit who seemed to be a little too unwilling to part with her charge had just unknowingly put the object of his wrath at the palm of his hand -- completely under his fuming mercy...

But, of course, being endowed as well with a face that could hide all traces of emotions normally observable to man, his expression remained impassive despite the fact that his heart was currently seething with hatred at the mere sight of that girl.

How many years had passed since they last saw each other? Nine? Ten? He was only six when he ran away from home immediately following that fateful night in his room… With his father… 

Why the hell did she have to come and remind him of everything he had struggled all his life to forget -- consequently re-igniting the vengeful antipathy he had nearly succeeded in wiping off his heart? His memory? He had actually come so close to forgetting she ever existed. That she ever had anything to do with his life… So, why did fate have to freaking let their paths cross again? Did he not suffer enough? Wasn't it torture enough that he had been struggling with his own life for years starting from such an early age? How much more crueler can the world get?

Then again, how much more… benign? Favorable? Rukawa's heart began to pound in vindictive anticipation as his eyes took in the sight of that kid. Suddenly, he realized he could never ignore this feeling forever, no matter how hard he tried. It would always come back to eat him up --fill him up with an irrepressible urge to… to… make hell out of this kid's life!

Was luck on his side after all?

"You can always send her back to me if ever you get tired of her or anything," the woman said suggestively, her frown smoothly shifting into a scowl of displeasure. "You just don't know how much of a lost this is gonna be for me."

__

Then why the hell did you take her here in the first place? Rukawa nearly blurted that out loud, but he just kept his mouth shut as he turned an equally intense frown on her. One that quietly said, "Clear out. This kid is mine…"

And since this kid's unexpected appearance on his porch had brought back every bit of the grudge he had for her, Rukawa just went and let the bitter wrath that shot through his veins, engulf him whole. Yes, even after these years --and despite all his efforts to free himself from it-- he had not yet forgotten his vow of vengeance. The blazing, seething vengeance with which he was gonna turn the hourglass upside down…

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Kaori Rukawa watched the retreating form of her oniisan perched on a sleek looking mountain bike from the balcony of her new room. Wearing a blue tracksuit to compliment his jogging pants of the same color, her brother looked sleek and stylish as well. No, wait. Sporty seemed to be a more fitting word. Gorgeously sporty. If the atmosphere hadn't been so tensed and stuffy a while back, she would've easily cracked a joke about Masato-san acquiring a serious case of ptyalism [i.e., excessive drooling] for she sure was staring a little too long and… **_hard_ **at Kaede.

Good thing Kaede-niisan only scoffed at her and obliquely told her off. Kaori never did like her, either. She despised her aunt to the deepest point of hell for reasons that were better left unsaid. Anyway, all that really mattered was that the spiteful old hag was gone. Gone for good. And she was now in the safety of her brother's custody. Away from the infernal life she had oh-so-eagerly been longing to depart.

Or so, that's how it seemed to her.

After her brother was completely engulfed by the distance, she stepped into the room and let out a loud sigh of relief. Yes, this was exactly how it felt to be free. Free at last from the grueling and _degrading_ bondage of her aunt's custody. She walked to the nearest bed and plopped down on the fluffy cushion, instantly loving the soft feel of it against her back. She closed her eyes and breathed in the sweet, warm afternoon breeze winnowing through the room. Deeply… Thoroughly, it was soothing her nerves, pacifying her traumatized spirit. It even seemed to be blotting out the dark, unwanted memories from her mind. The bitter, afflictive life she had long been trying to escape…

Needless to say, Kaori was extremely enthused. She loved every ticking second of her newfound freedom. Utterly innocent and unaware of how much more of the bondage she thought she had just run out of lay arcane on the path ahead of her. She was much too happy to notice the slightest hint of an impending struggle…

"Arigatou, oniisan," she mumbled into space as every bit of her consciousness was gradually taken over by a calm, peaceful lethargy.

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tbc


	3. Chapter Two: Haunted

**A/N: **THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU very much to all the people who have been nice enough to review this fic of mine. This chapter is dedicated to all you guys and to anyone else who would care enough to pay attention .Warning: Perverted thoughts and language… I think I should change this fic's rating to R :P

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**CHAPTER TWO: HAUNTED**

The abrasively familiar musky smell lingered in his nose even as he was idly pedaling his bicycle down the darkened block leading to his house. And in the eerie stillness of the night, it rang a gratingly sharp testimony to the draining yet hardly satisfying sensual stint he had wrought out on one of his regular customers about an hour ago.

Whenever he was at it, it didn't matter at all that the perfidious husband was friggin' old enough to be his grandfather or that the fuckin' old man almost literally reeked of rotten flesh.

It had never bothered him that he had to slide his tongue up and down that wrinkly sheath of skin. Or had given much fuss about the patriarchal man's scream of passion sounding more like the haunting cries of a waking zombie whenever he would thrust himself into his decaying hole.

He had never given much attention to such trivial things while he's still at work on it. After all, he could take a shower afterwards and cry all he liked while washing off all offensive signs of his corrupted secret life from his superficially unblemished skin.

Even after years of providing such services to rich, perverted folks--both male and female alike, he still couldn't help but feel as though he was doing this for the first time. How many years had it been? About ten… Since he ran away from home after a similar abusive experience with his father, he had been depending on this job to provide for his needs. He had been supplying good sex to lonely folks--taking part in these lustful people's acts of perfidy, sometimes even ridding an occasional long-suffering soul off his or her virginity.

He's quite good at it, actually, having had excellent training at such a young age. He had yet to encounter an indurate creature who wouldn't be satisfied by all the things he could do. It had been a common joke in the strip joint he worked for that he could make even a fossilized statue bear seeds and come into his hands.

He was that good. And he earned a lot from it as well. But he hated the job.

If he had a choice, anything at all, he would be more than willing to leave this place. But this was where he had spent most of his life. This was the place that readily took him in from his aimless wondering in the streets.

This was where he had become a man.

And no matter how many times he had thought of leaving it, he just couldn't get himself to do so, considering the fact that he owed his very life and soul to this joint. He wouldn't have survived this long if it hadn't been for this job.

He could've died in the streets without even realizing his dreams.

He could've lost his breath without leaving a mark that someone like him had once lived in this world.

He hated that thought. He hated it more than anything.

So he kept this job, though against his every principle and will. Besides, the amount of money these rich fucks pay for his satisfying services had always been enough--almost to the whole extent--to override all feelings of disgust and shame that came with each nocturnal session.

In a single night, he could make as much money as would a pathetic public employee clambering through a whole month of grueling labor. He would just have to bear with a night of foul play, thrusting himself into every gaping portals of passion, releasing about a barrel of his juice into some fecund and fallow apertures and-- Voila! He's a rich man.

It's the easiest job he knew. The only one he knew, actually. And despite the emotional, psychological, and even the physical torture he always got from it, he couldn't imagine himself living through a night without it.

It had become a kind of addiction. One his moral side hated to do, but his immoral one loved indulging in more than anything.

And, though bad and profligate as it may seem, it was the only other thing aside from basketball that had given him an assurance for a better future…

He ain't gonna leave this world like a sporadic wind, never to be seen nor thought of ever again. He ain't gonna be a mortal breath who would cease existing beyond the grave.

After everything he had been through, Kaede Rukawa knew he's worth more than that. Much, much more…

He finally reached his house--one he had bought out of his own sweat--walked and parked his bike in the backyard before letting himself in through the back door.

He almost thought he had entered the wrong house for what immediately caught his eyes when he switched the light on was the orderly condition of his kitchen. There was no more sign of the dishes he--for lack of time and sense of responsibility--had purposefully left unwashed on the sink since last week. The sink itself almost blinded him with its dazzling cleanliness. The floor squeaked proudly under his trainers, and there was even cooked food waiting for him on the table.

He set the bag of clothes he was carrying on one chair, as carefully as though he was too afraid of contaminating anything in his own house with the littlest dust of his recent tryst.

He then trudged over to his living room to see if it had suffered from the same transformation, as did his kitchen. And it took everything he had to keep his jaw from slacking at the sight of his new house. Yes, it was a new house, that much he could say. Not really much had changed except that it had suddenly become neat and tidy enough to suit a king. He couldn't help but feel like a stranger to his own home.

After a few more seconds of taking in the new look of his place, he found himself back in the kitchen, sitting at the dining table and deftly winning a glaring match with the delicious looking soup staring at him from his favorite bowl. He stole a glance at the bag resting on the chair beside him and couldn't keep a small sigh from escaping his lips.

He was still as angry with her as he was before, all right. But after everything she had done on her first day in his house, he stopped asking himself why he had spent all of tonight's earnings on those stuffs.

After another longing look on the alluring bowl of soup, he stood up, grabbed the bag and took to the stairs with a strange feeling of anticipation welling in his heart.

He may never understand why he bought all these clothes for that little twerp in the first place, but he sure hoped he's got her taste right.

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It was a guy with a limping gait. Cute, but a little hotheaded. Shy and anxious, yet overflowing with as much pride and arrogance as would allow him to act otherwise, which was exactly what he did.

His friends had bought her from Masato-san as a sort of initiation gift for his accession to their gang. And for the handsome price they paid, her aunt didn't even think twice before giving her away.

She was only twelve years old then, the guy was fifteen. And that night was just the outset of many similar ones to come.

She lived for three years with Masato-san, during which that whore earned a fortune from selling her around this way. Every night, repeatedly for three years, she would find herself staring into the eyes of the next man eager and merciless enough to debauch her already badly soiled innocence.

This was the past she had wanted to escape from for the longest time. The life she had successfully gotten out of just a few hours ago. But recurring memories of it proved to be a little harder to efface. Wherever she went or whatever she did, they would forever remain etched in her mind… In her dreams… Along with the emotions, the strange sensations she felt with each ravenous kiss, each possessive touch, each subduing intrusion into her being… She would feel them all every night, almost as much as she was feeling them all tonight.

Kaori bolted upright and out of that dream, that un-thwarted ghost of her past which had always come haunting her in her sleep. Her breaths came in ragged gasps and she was drenched in cold, thick sweat all over. A trembling hand flew to her chest as she closed her eyes tight, using every ounce of strength left in her to calm her raging senses down.

It took her only about a minute to get a hold on herself, as what had always been the case whenever she woke out of this all too familiar nightmare. She was about to lie back down and curl herself into a pathetic crying ball, when upon opening her eyes, she found herself staring into a pair of mesmerizing blue pools gazing back at her with a kind of intensity she couldn't quite place, nor put a finger on at the moment.

It took her only a while to acknowledge the familiarity of those peepers…

But the feeling of relief that flooded her upon realizing the presence of her onii-san sitting at the edge of her bed was only momentary. For almost as abruptly as this realization came, the feeling of dread she always felt whenever she stared into men's eyes shot through her like Novocain. It drew the same kind of numbing feeling from her… Those eyes she was looking into right now were filled with almost the same kind of desire…

The same amount of lust…

She had wanted to tear her eyes away, but every nerve and muscle in her body had already frozen and stiffened under that gaze.

She suddenly got the feeling that this wasn't the onii-san she saw in the article she had clipped out of Masato-san's sports magazine and was now keeping under her pillow. This wasn't the guy who was caught in the picture executing a graceful slam dunk that earned victory for their team in the recent Winter Tournament.

This wasn't the Kaede Rukawa she knew to be her long lost big brother…

Or so, that's what she wanted to believe at that very moment.

For that was easier to deal with than the notion that her brother was not much different from those men…

Kaori got so overwhelmed with agitation that she could hardly be bothered by anything else. Not the tears freely gushing out of her frightful eyes… Nor the solitary one that crashed into an evanescent stain on her blanket.

The haunting memories of her past had long since blinded her eyes, disposing her to an automatic judgment of everyone as being mean and perverted… Obviously, this was not excluding her very own brother.

They had not seen each other for a long time, after all. Who knew how much her onii-san had changed during those years they were apart?

Not that he had really shown her any kind of affection, in the first place.

She may not know why, but she was well aware of the fact that her onii-san hated her. Ever since they were kids, she had tried all her best to pacify even a quarter of that hatred by showing her onii-san how much she cared. And she truly did… She loved her onii-san more than anything--more than anyone in the world…

And no matter how many times he had snarled the words, "I hate you…" to her face, she never gave up trying to make him feel loved and wanted. For no matter what he did or thought of her, no one could ever change the fact that they had a fairly similar familial origin. That they were siblings, to say the very least.

Despite this irrevocable fact, however, their father had never wanted him and she never did understand that. Why would an old man loathe someone of his own flesh and blood? Why would he hurt her poor onii-san as though he was a stranger, a mere slave, while at the same time showering her with all the love and affection he was capable of giving? Were they not conceived from the same kind of sensual union between two madly in-love couple? Had they not come out of the same womb, out of the same woman their father loved with all his life? Onii-san may have slid out first, but what difference did it make?

She remembered staying outside of that filthy room ten years ago, listening to her brother's agonized cries of pain. That was the last night she ever saw him. When he dashed past her, his clothes torn and drenched in both blood and sweat, all he left behind for her to remember distinctly was _that smell_…

In her innocence, she had never stopped wondering what had happened inside that room. Every time she had a chance to think of her brother, that strange smell would come tingling at her nose as though she was actually watching her brother ran past her once again…

As the years past by, and her time was generously filled with matters that concerned her own life, she had gradually began to forget…

Until she met that guy with the limping gait. The moment she felt him thrusting into her, she had cried out in pain. The same agonized cries of pain that had filled her brother's room was rushing out of her mouth as the delirious guy did a frenzic dance on top of her…

And it was only after the guy had slumped feebly beside her that she became fully aware of it… That same musky smell that his brother had left behind…

And then she knew… Knew exactly what happened that night…

"I… I'm… sorry," she forced the words through her lips, as though saying them alone was harder than letting out a contaminated breath. She had always thought it was her fault that her onii-san had to suffer through that kind of abuse. He had always blamed her for everything that had happened to him. And she had taken them all as though reconciled to the fact that she was the most sinful soul that had ever grazed the earth.

She had wanted to move in with her older brother, not only because of a past she had always wanted to rid herself of, but also because of the past she had hoped to rub out of his onii-san's system, out of his every emotion, his every haunting memory.

She had vowed to make it up to him in any way she could…

"You're lucky," was all her brother said before standing up and leaving the room. But not after sending another tear crashing beside the initial stain…

This time, Kaori was aware and un-blinded enough to notice.

**tbc**


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